Rapid warming in Tibet, China: public perception, response and coping resources in urban Lhasa

Environmental Health

Research

Xiaolu Li¹  Junfang Xu¹  Baorong Yu¹  Fangjun Wan²  Li Bai²  Xiaobo Liu²  Shaowei Sang²  Lin Zhou²  Haixia Wu²  Qiyong Liu³  Alistair Woodward⁴ 

[1] Center for Health Management and Policy, Shandong University, 44 WenhuaXi Road, 250014, JiNan, Shangdong, P.R. China;Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 155 Changbai Road, 102206, Changping District, Beijing, P.R. China;Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 155 Changbai Road, 102206, Changping District, Beijing, P.R. China;Climate Change and Health Center, Shandong University, 44 WenHua Road, 250012, JiNan, Shangdong, P.R. China;School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, 1142, Auckland, New Zealand;

关键词: Climate change;    Global warming;    Perceptions;    Human health;    Tibet;    Vulnerability;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-12-71

 received in 2013-03-30, accepted in 2013-08-25,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTibet, average altitude more than 4,000 meters, is warming faster than anywhere else in China. The increase in temperatures may aggravate existing health problems and lead to the emergence of new risks. However, there are no actions being taken at present to protect population health due to limited understanding about the range and magnitude of health effects of climate change.MethodsThe study was a cross-sectional survey of 619 respondents from urban Lhasa, Tibet in August 2012 with the aim to investigate public perceptions of risk, heat experiences, and coping resources.ResultsRespondents are aware of the warming that has occurred in Lhasa in recent years. Over 78% reported that rising temperature is either a “very” or “somewhat” serious threat to their own health, and nearly 40% reported they had experienced heat-related symptoms. Sex, age, education and income influenced perceived risks, health status, and heat experience. The vast majority of respondents reported that they had altered their behaviour on hot summer days. Bakuo, a sub-district at the city center, is considered especially vulnerable to heat because of sparse vegetation, high population density, poor dwelling conditions and a high proportion of low-income population. However, neighborhood social ties were stronger in Bakuo than other study locations.ConclusionsThe study suggests that actions are needed now to minimize downside effects of rapid warming in Tibet, because of increasing human exposure to high temperatures and uneven distribution of the resources needed to cope.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Bai et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.